“When my heart was broken and I was fifteen, I listened to Lou Reed’s Berlin over and over and walked around a lot in the rain, while my friends followed me looking worried and imploring me not to do anything stupid. Well, stupider than walking in the rain, anyway.”
- Neil Gaiman

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“The boy I loved didn’t know I existed. Then again, he was obsessed with Camus, so he didn’t know if any of us existed.”
-David Levithan

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“When Patti Fox broke up with me, I typed her name over a thousand times on my manual Olivetti until the entire page was beaten into a stiff sheet of black ink.”
-Jack Gantos

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“The first boy I fell in love with didn’t know I loved him, but he managed to break my heart anyway.”
-Holly Black

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“Of course I had my heart broken as a teen. I was desperately in love with myself. Then I found out that I was completely shallow. I haven’t spoken to myself since.”
-M.T. Anderson

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“I was heartbroken when my boyfriend announced he was moving to Chicago without me. But, oh yeah, I could keep his guitar amp. Thanks.”
-Sarah Shepard

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“My heart was broken the spring of my senior year in high school. We broke up in a park outside of town, and as I drove him home, he read me what he’d written in my yearbook. The line that really made me sob? ‘You will always be my Princess Bride.’ Sniff.”
-Carolyn Mackler

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“We broke up because I was not a boy.”
-Lisa Brown

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“I thought dating her was just fine. Pleasant. You know what I mean? When she said she didn’t want to go out with me anymore my friends gathered around me. They shook their heads and frowned. They patted my back. ‘To bad,’ they said and ‘you’ll be okay.’ I wasn’t sure how they wanted me to act so I tried stomping around and punching walls. I tried to feel bad. I really did. But it didn’t really make any sense to keep up the act. Then I found the meaning of relationships when you’re a teen. It’s a wonderful country music tune called: I Don’t Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling.”
-Kevin O’Malley

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“After my first lesbian break up, my ex left a series of ‘I hate you’ parting gifts on my porch. Including a cassette tape of the Radiohead song ‘Creep.’ Looped. Back to back. Side A and B. Best. Mix tape. Ever.”
-Mariko Tamaki

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“We broke up because I kept forgetting that I had a fake British accent.”
-Adele Griffin

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“I got dumped on my nineteenth birthday. The next day a car hit me. The impact threw me ten feet. My jeans were shredded so badly that my college roommate hung them on our dorm room wall as a conversation piece. I spent the next week recovering in bed, listening to The Smiths and feeling sorry for myself. It took about a decade, but eventually I understood that young love is always a comedy.”
-Matthew Quick

(compiled by Pamela Haag at BigThink)

1. Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego): The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start. 
   Oh yes, this is an exquisite word, compressing a thrilling and scary relationship moment. It’s that delicious, cusp-y moment of imminent seduction. Neither of you has mustered the courage to make a move, yet. Hands haven’t been placed on knees; you’ve not kissed. But you’ve both conveyed enough to know that it will happen soon… very soon.
2. Yuanfen(Chinese): A relationship by fate or destiny. This is a complex concept. It draws on principles of predetermination in Chinese culture, which dictate relationships, encounters and affinities, mostly among lovers and friends.From what I glean, in common usage yuanfen means the “binding force” that links two people together in any relationship. 
   But interestingly, “fate” isn’t the same thing as “destiny.” Even if lovers are fated to find each other they may not end up together. The proverb, “have fate without destiny,” describes couples who meet, but who don’t stay together, for whatever reason. It’s interesting, to distinguish in love between the fated and the destined. Romantic comedies, of course, confound the two.
3. Cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese): The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone’s hair.
4. Retrouvailles (French):  The happiness of meeting again after a long time. This is such a basic concept, and so familiar to the growing ranks of commuter relationships, or to a relationship of lovers, who see each other only periodically for intense bursts of pleasure. I’m surprised we don’t have any equivalent word for this subset of relationship bliss. It’s a handy one for modern life.
5. Ilunga (Bantu): A person who is willing to forgive abuse the first time; tolerate it the second time, but never a third time.
   Apparently, in 2004, this word won the award as the world’s most difficult to translate. Although at first, I thought it did have a clear phrase equivalent in English: It’s the “three strikes and you’re out” policy. But ilunga conveys a subtler concept, because the feelings are different with each “strike.” The word elegantly conveys the progression toward intolerance, and the different shades of emotion that we feel at each stop along the way.
   Ilunga captures what I’ve described as the shade of gray complexity in marriages—Not abusive marriages, but marriages that involve infidelity, for example.  We’ve got tolerance, within reason, and we’ve got gradations of tolerance, and for different reasons. And then, we have our limit. The English language to describe this state of limits and tolerance flattens out the complexity into black and white, or binary code. You put up with it, or you don’t.  You “stick it out,” or not.
   Ilunga restores the gray scale, where many of us at least occasionally find ourselves in relationships, trying to love imperfect people who’ve failed us and whom we ourselves have failed.
6. La Douleur Exquise (French): The heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone you can’t have.
   When I came across this word I thought of “unrequited” love. It’s not quite the same, though. “Unrequited love” describes a relationship state, but not a state of mind. Unrequited love encompasses the lover who isn’t reciprocating, as well as the lover who desires. La douleur exquise gets at the emotional heartache, specifically, of being the one whose love is unreciprocated.
7. Koi No Yokan (Japanese): The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall into love. 
   This is different than “love at first sight,” since it implies that you might have a sense of imminent love, somewhere down the road, without yet feeling it. The term captures the intimation of inevitable love in the future, rather than the instant attraction implied by love at first sight.
8. Ya’aburnee(Arabic): “You bury me.” It’s a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person, because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
   The online dictionary that lists this word calls it “morbid and beautiful.” It’s the “How Could I Live Without You?” slickly insincere cliché of dating, polished into a more earnest, poetic term. 
9. Forelsket: (Norwegian):  The euphoria you experience when you’re first falling in love.
   This is a wonderful term for that blissful state, when all your senses are acute for the beloved, the pins and needles thrill of the novelty. There’s a phrase in English for this, but it’s clunky. It’s “New Relationship Energy,” or NRE.
10. Saudade (Portuguese): The feeling of longing for someone that you love and is lost. Another linguist describes it as a “vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist.”
    It’s interesting that saudade accommodates in one word the haunting desire for a lost love, or for an imaginary, impossible, never-to-be-experienced love. Whether the object has been lost or will never exist, it feels the same to the seeker, and leaves her in the same place:  She has a desire with no future. Saudade doesn’t distinguish between a ghost, and a fantasy. Nor do our broken hearts, much of the time.

My favorites are Ya’aburnee, Mamihlapinatapei, and La Douleur Exquise. :p

• belligerati, n. Writers and other members of the intelligentsia who advocate war or imperialism.
• bibliotherapy, n. A form of therapy or self-help that uses books as therapeutic tools.
• blurb whore, n. A writer who provides flattering comments about a book or movie in exchange for meals, travel, or some other perk.
• defictionalization, n. When a product or object from a movie, book, or other fictional source is made in the real world. (defictionalize, v.)
• Judas biography, n. An autobiography that denigrates or betrays a former friend or spouse of the writer.
• misery lit, n. A memoir or novel that focuses on extreme personal trauma and abuse. Also: misery-lit, mis lit, misery literature, misery memoir.
• steampunk, n. A literary genre that applies science fiction or fantasy elements to historical settings and that features steam-powered, mechanical machines rather than electronic devices. (x)

• For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
  -Ernest Hemingway
• Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
  -Alan Moore
• Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
  -Richard Powers
• The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
  -Orson Scott Card
• Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
  -Margaret Atwood
• Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
  -Vernor Vinge
• It’s behind you! Hurry before it
  -Rockne S. O’Bannon
• Don’t marry her. Buy a house.
  -Stephen R. Donaldson
• I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
  -Neil Gaiman
• Dorothy: “Fuck it, I’ll stay here.”
  -Steven Meretzky
• Automobile warranty expires. So does engine.
  -Stan Lee
• From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings.
  -Gregory Maguire
• TIME MACHINE REACHES FUTURE!!! … nobody there …
  -Harry Harrison
• Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot.
  -David Brin
• Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
  -Joss Whedon

THE SCIENCE OF BEAUTY. In ancient Greece it was all about the math. They believed that beauty had a ratio: roughly 1.618 to 1. The Greeks called this ratio phi and used it obsessively in their architecture and art. Temples like the Parthenon and the Acropolis have phi all over them. And so does George Clooney’s face.

-From Bogus to Bubbly: An Insider’s Guide to the World of Uglies (Scott Westerfeld) 

cinderellainrubbershoes:

THE RAVEN. Edgar Allan Poe didn’t earn a cent from his most famous poem, The Raven, having published it first in a newspaper for free and thereby losing any and all future copyright monies. The original title of The Raven was To Lenore but upon having dinner with Charles Dickens and learning of the great writer`s recently deceased pet bird, which just happened to be a raven, Poe reworked the poem to include the black bird as a central figure.

Poe wrote The Raven with the intent of creating what he called an “adult fairy tale” and when asked why he didn`t start the poem with the traditional “Once upon a time” but used “Once upon a midnight dreary” Poe replied, “In my `time` it`s always `midnight dreary.`” All of Poe`s stories took place at night, or if a day scene was required, it was the bleakest, foulest day of the year.

art by Amir Taqi

1. Oedipus Complex. This complex is named after the mythical king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father, Lauis, and married his mother, Jocasta, bringing disaster to his city and family. In the Freudian concepts, this complex explains a male child’s subconscious desire to have the complete and exclusive attention of the mother, and extreme resentment towards the father, who is considered the rival. In female children, this phenomenon is called the “Elektra Complex”.
2. Madonna Complex. This complex is named after a Madonna or a mother figure. In Freudian psychology, this complex is developed in male children who are raised by cold and distant mothers. In response to this, when they grow up, they tend to court women possessing the same qualities as their mothers, hoping to fulfill a need for intimacy unmet in childhood. For this reason, the husband continues to see his wife as his mother and thus, he cannot see her as an object of sexual attraction.
3. Lear Complex. Named after the main character in one of William Shakespeare’s popular tragedies, this complex describes the father’s libidinous fixation on his daughter. In the tragedy, King Lear descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The same complex as experienced by mothers is called the “Jocasta Complex.”
4. Cassandra Complex. The name of this behavioral phenomenon is derived from a mythical prophetess from Troy whose prophecies of doom are believed by no one—a curse given by Apollo when she did not return his love. It describes people’s tendency, often due to denial, to disbelieve predictions of imminent doom or a crisis that would ultimately come true.
5. Napoleon Complex. Named after one of the world’s most intelligent militarists in history, this is an alleged type of inferiority complex often appearing in men who are short in stature. In order to compensate for their perceived defect, sufferers of this complex often attempts to excel so as to gain greater sense of worth.
6. Cain Complex. This psychological phenomenon is a destructive sibling rivalry, in which one of the siblings resents the other for perceived favouritism from a parental figure. This is named after the Biblical character Cain who murdered his brother Abel when God rejected his sacrifice and accepted that of Abel’s.
7. Polycrates Complex. In psychology, this complex is used to describe the desire to be punished. This complex is named after the tyrant Polycrates who, instead of heeding his daughter’s prophecy of his impending death, went to visit a treacherous would-be benefactor and was murdered.
8. Wendy Complex. Named after a character in J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. It is the phenomenon wherein wives/girlfriends tend to act to their partners as surrogate mothers. This is because their partners continue to act like children. This is also called the “Wendy Dilemma.”
9. Cinderella Complex- named after Perrault’s character that is popularized by Disney, this complex describes women’s fear of independence and an unconscious desire to be taken care of, usually by a stronger or masculine figure. It is said to be an aspect of a larger phenomenon as to why women choose to stay in dysfunctional relationships.
10. Superman Complex. This is named after the popular comic book superhero. Superman complex is an unhealthy sense of responsibility, or the belief that everyone else lacks the capacity to successfully perform one or more tasks. Such a person may feel a constant need to “save” others.

see 10 Syndromes named after literary works/characters

1. Alice in Wonderland Syndrome
   Unlike the namesake of this disorder, sufferers of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome perceive their body parts and other objects in altered sizes even if they don’t consume weird things with “Drink Me!” or “Eat Me!” on their labels. :P AIWS is commonly associated with migraines, brain tumors, use of psychoactive drugs, and signs of epilepsy and mononucleosis. This is also called Todd’s Syndrome.
2. Rapunzel Syndrome
   This syndrome is named after the fairy tale princess with beautiful and astonishingly long hair in one of Brothers Grimm’s bedtime stories. The Rapunzel Syndrome is a rare intestinal condition in humans resulting from tricophagia, or the abnormal urge to eat one’s hair. This diagnosis is medically referred to as trichobezoar. In ancient times, the hair found in intestinal tracks are believed to be an elixir of some sort, able to cure lots of diseases.
3. Cinderella Syndrome
   Named after the main character in one of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, this syndrome refers to the common phenomenon in kids where they make exaggerated stories about how they are abused, mistreated, or neglected by adoptive/step-parents. This is different from ‘Cinderella Complex’, which is said to be women’s fear of independence and an unconscious desire to be taken care of by ‘stronger’ others (like metaphorical Fairy God moms or Princes Charming).
4. Peter Pan Syndrome
    “I don’t want to grow up!” says J.M. Barrie’s popular character from Neverland. According to pop-psychology, sufferers of Peter Pan Syndrome are adults who are socially immature. They tend to avoid responsibilities and often feel the need to be mothered.
5. Dorian Gray Syndrome
   This syndrome is named after the handsome main character of Oscar Wilde’s book The Picture of Dorian Gray who sells his soul so that his portrait will age instead of himself. Sufferers of DGS are characterized by an excessive preoccupation with their physical appearances and youth, thus having problems in terms of coping with aging. Often, people with DGS have narcissistic traits and are heavily reliant on cosmetic procedures and products.
6. Othello Syndrome
   Sufferers of Othello syndrome, very much like the namesake of this disorder from one of Shakespeare’s works,  are characterized by intense and often delusional distrust of their partners. This syndrome is also called morbid jealousy and is often associated with alcoholism and sexual dysfunction. It can also be found in the context of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
   
7. Pollyanna Syndrome
   Named after Eleanor Porter’s protagonist in her best-selling children’s book, Pollyanna Syndrome is the psychological phenomenon wherein a person becomes blindly or foolishly optimistic to a point that it’s almost delusional.
8. Emperor’s Clothes Syndrome
   The Emperor’s Clothes Syndrome is more like a mentality than a disorder. It got its name from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale where no one in town—until the kid speaks—is pointing out that the Emperor is naked because no one wants to be called ‘stupid’ or ‘unfit’ for their positions. People who have ECS claim that they know something even if they don’t, in order to avoid being judged as stupid or intellectually inferior to others.
9. Mowgli Syndrome
   This syndrome is named after the beloved main character of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Mowgli. Mowgli is a boy who is raised by animals. Kids with this syndrome are said to have weak mental and/or physical traits, especially those who have suffered tremendous emotional stress due to parental neglect and abuse.
10. Huckleberry Finn Syndrome
    This is named after one of Mark Twain’s boy characters that became darlings to the readers, Huck Finn. It’s a psychodynamic complex in which the obligations and responsibilities avoided as a child, eventuate into frequent job changes and absenteeism as an adult. The HFS may be a defense mechanism linked to parental rejection, low self-esteem and depression in an intelligent person.

via My Modern Met

The Endless (from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series) are entities that are neither mortals nor gods. They are the anthropomorphic personifications of abstract concepts and are older than the rest of the universe: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. 

Jill Thompson illustrated the said entities in a cute style inspired by DC Comics characters Sugar and Spike. All seven siblings appeared in her The Little Endless Storybook, produced in the wake of the positive reader reaction when they saw little Dream and little Death in the Sandman’s fortieth issue, The Parliament of Rooks.

The adorableness of each Endless is just killing me, and I can’t help but give them a little space here in my blog. :p So here they are, with some info:

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1. DESTINY
 

Destiny is the oldest among the Endless. To mortal eyes, he is the tallest in his family; he casts no shadow nor does he leave any footprints. He is depicted as a man cloaked and hooded in grey/purple/brown robes, and is chained to a thick book called the Cosmic Log, where everyone’s/everything’s stories are written. He is said to smell of dusts and old libraries.

He is cold, somber, and very dedicated to his work. “There are some who believe him to be blind; whilst others, perhaps with more reason, claimed that he has traveled far beyond blindness, that indeed, he can do nothing but see [everything].”

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2. DEATH

While everyone’s stereotype of the concept of demise is a scary skeleton wielding a scythe, Death of the Endless is actually the opposite—instead of some creature inspiring terror, she is a down-to-earth friend. Unlike Destiny, she is warm and caring. She is depicted as a pale Goth girl wearing a silver ankh (ironically the Egyptian symbol for “life”) and an eye-of-Horus tattoo around one eye. She is known to have a sense of humor, gentle wisdom, a quirky upbeat personality…a floppy hat collection and two goldfish (I’m serious).

“One day in every century, Death takes on mortal flesh, to better comprehend what the lives she takes must feel like, to taste the bitter tang of mortality: this is the price she must pay for being the divider of the living from all that has gone before and all that must come after.”

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3. DREAM

Dream is—as stated in Season of Mists—a conundrum. To human eyes he’s tall and “rake-thin, with skin the color of falling snow” (think of The Cure’s lead singer Robert Smith, only a tad skinnier). His appearance actually varies depending on who’s looking at him: a Martian sees him as a disembodied energy being, a cat sees him as a cat, humans see him as human and so on.

He is sometimes slow when dealing with humor, occasionally insensitive, often self-obsessed, and is very slow to forgive or forget a slight (also, he has a very bad list of love lives). If he is close to anyone, it is to his older sister Death.

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4. DESTRUCTION

Destruction is the fourth oldest Endless, portrayed as a big man with red hair and beard. He is Dream’s immediately younger sibling but in many ways wiser and more aware of the Endless’ place in the universe. He is warm, affectionate, and the best humored; aside from Death, he projects as a character that is opposite of the concept he portrays.

He “resigns” and abandons his realm when he foresaw that mankind will eventually use science as a tool of mass destruction (i.e. the atomic bombs). He refuses to be responsible for this, and lets humans be the cause of their own destruction. He leaves and is referred to as “The Prodigal”; instead of destroying, he goes on and creates things. He paints, helps in construction work, cooks, etc.

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5. DESPAIR
 

Despair is Desire’s twin sister, and is depicted as a squat, flabby, ugly naked woman. Her skin is said to be cold and clammy, and her eyes has “the colour of sky, on the grey, wet days that leach the world of colour and meaning”. She has no odor, but her shadow smells musky and pungent. She wears a ring with a hook on her left hand, with which she occasionally carves her skin.

“It is said that scattered through Despair’s domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out on a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag upon your heart.”

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6. DESIRE
 

Despair’s twin, Desire is usually portrayed as an androgynous being; he/she/it is both and at the same time neither male nor female. He/she/it is of medium height, has pale skin and yellow eyes, smells faintly of summer peaches and casts two shadows: one black and sharp-edged, the other translucent and wavering. He/she/it is very malicious, engaging in games that interfere with the other Endless’ affairs (particularly Dream’s).

“It is unlikely that any portrait will ever do Desire any justice, since to see her (or him) is to love him (or her)—passionately, painfully, to the exclusion of all else….Desire is everything you have ever wanted, whoever you are, whatever you are. Everything.”

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7. DELIRIUM
 

Delirium is the youngest of the Endless yet still older than the rest of existence. Her appearance is more variable compared to that of her other siblings, but she’s usually portrayed as a young girl with wild, vibrantly colored hair and heterochromia: one eye is blue and the other one is green. Some people say that her mismatched eyes are a reminder that Delirium had a tragedy once, for before she was called Delight. Nobody knows the real reason behind her transformation.

She is said to smell of “sweat, sour wines, late nights, and old leather”. Her shadow never matches the shape of her body, and it is tangible like velvet.

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Images (save the first one) came from The Little Endless Storybook by Jill Thompson. All characters by Neil Gaiman.

For so many times I passed by the shelf in the bookstore that contains Brave New World; I just snubbed it and looked for other books. That mistake will be rectified soon. :P

Also putting “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman on my to-read list. :)

I often wonder what I should call myself for falling in and out of love again and again…with a lot of authors, ever since I was a kid. I’ve known a lot of “book sluts” and “book whores”, but a friend whom I was texting over the last couple of days told me that I must belong to the “royalty of literary hookers”. I chuckled when I read that, and told myself…hey that wasn’t a bad title at all, if you look at it at the right way. As much as possible I don’t use expletives (in vocal or written conversations), but my friend doesn’t believe in her expression’s filters. So whether I like it or not, she has put an invisible crown upon my head already and there’s nothing I can do about that now. :p

In this post, I want to share a ‘compressed’ history of my literary *coughs* harlotry.

Bambino Bookishness
After learning the “abakada” on my mother’s lap at the age of four, I moved on to Adarna Publishing House books. My first love affair was with APH writers, and my favorite was Ang Pambihirang Buhok ni Raquel (Raquel’s Fantastic Hair) by Luis P. Gatmaitan. That was the first story that I undeservedly loved, because it was the first fictional work in my life that touched me deeply.

Just looking at the cover makes me feel like a hundred years older. :(

A story of two girls: the narrator, a poor, dark-skinned province girl and her wealthy, fair-skinned Manila-based cousin Raquel. The narrator adores and envies Raquel’s hair because it fantastically changes color and shape every time they meet (you should see the book, the drawings of the hair are amazing—one illustration I remember has race tracks looped around the multihued strands, with little toy cars and people running on them). The narrator finds it mysterious that Raquel always tells her that she is luckier. Later, she finds out that Raquel has leukemia, and the awesome hair is in fact only a wig. The ending was bittersweet, as I recall: “At ngayon mas hinahangaan na kita, mas gusto ko nang maging katulad mo. Ngunit hindi dahil sa pambihirang buhok mo, kundi dahil sa pambihirang tapang mo…” (Thank you, Google).

Anyway, sorry for the mini faux-review—can’t help it, it’s so nostalgic. I loved other Adarna books like Nasaan si Kuya Emil?, Chenelyn! Chenelyn!, Papel de Liha (this is a freaking good tribute to moms), and Ang Unang Baboy sa Langit. I was so engrossed back then, and I remembered being chosen by my teacher—along with two other classmates—as a contestant for an interschool competition regarding the said books and their relation to R.A. 7610 and the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924. Unfortunately we only won fourth place. :/ After my affair with the Adarna book authors, I realized that there are more to discover than the works we see from APH agents that disturb the class just to sell their books. That’s when I set my foot in the heaven called the local library for the first time in my life. And it was like love at first sight—or love at first touch of pages, if we’re going for technical correctness. I was instantly smitten with the Brothers Grimm.

I bet my bottom peso that no child has ever grown up without encounters with fairy tales. My love for the Brothers Grimm was unrivaled for years. I got my first books in 3-in-1 packages—the most colorful eye-candies in the bookstore back then—and I remember reading them all night long. For every page I turn, I’m falling deeper in love with the authors. It was an ecstatic feeling, and I held on from every once-upon-a-time with hopes and smiles; I fought the dragons and evildoers unflinchingly along with the princes and knights-in-shining-armors; I celebrated along the characters when they seal the adventures with kisses and happy-ever-afters. 

But years later I found out that what I loved were “sanitized” or Disney versions; everything was jam-packed with happy endings and euphemisms. The original tales were dark and harsh, the moral lessons not covered in veils of sugarcoating. Sure, it was a good excuse that children should not be exposed to violent or morbid folktales, but when I came upon the discovery I knew there was no turning back. It felt like being betrayed for all those years.

Heartbroken but still Loving

It’s not like it’s the Brothers Grimm’s fault, but the heartache was wearing me out. I need to move on. After all, there’s no requirement for princesses to become damsels in distress for the rest of their lives. So I opted for the better alternative—I jumped out of the castle’s tower, all geared up to seek for adventures in other books.

Gothic style! Camille Rose Garcia must be a goddess of an artist! I had a fling with Lewis Carroll; I held Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with a mild passion. I flirted with L. Frank Baum and his The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, loving Dorothy Gale like she was my little sister. I grew and had one-night stands with other writers like Louisa May Alcott, Johanna Spyri, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, J.M. Barrie, and Mark Twain. I was careful about loving them, because as it is in real life, it would be too painful when I get hurt again. You could say that I was playing safe.

I have a copy of this edition! I so love it!

But the Cupid of literature wouldn’t let me toy with the real idea of love. His arrow pierced my protective barrier when I met Charlotte Bronte and her Jane Eyre. I was in love again, and this kind of work was new to my taste: gothic and romantic and tugging at my heartstrings. Soon I had illicit affairs with Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, Frances Hodgson Burnet’s The Secret Garden, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. I became the paramour of Diana Wynne Jones, Washington Irving, and Walter Scott. I had a relationship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. I became addicted with R.L. Stine—the first writer who let me taste a dollop of exciting horror—which led me to Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe. I was gleeful beyond explanation.

Poetry was not left out of the picture of course. Robert Frost, John Keats, Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath, and Walt Whitman were there for the affaire de coeur.

Soon I went to our community’s Vacation Bible School as a student, and there I found out that that thick tome we call the Bible was chock-full of wonderful stories too—marvelous enough that they can compete effortlessly with other stories that caught my breath away. I have lots of questions and reactions back then like: Why did God create that evil serpent that seduced Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit? Why did Samson love Delilah even if she betrayed him and have his source of strength sheared? Come on, Joseph’s just human, for sure he’ll initially be suspicious when Mary was carrying a child that was clearly not his. Oh no, the old trickster substituted Leah for Rachel in the latter’s wedding with Jacob—and it went undetected! Oh no, Lot’s wife, don’t look back or you’ll be turned into a pillar of salt!

I’ve never watched an opera/musical version of Samson and Delilah (let alone read a separate book version—just really the Bible), but I guess this poster is tastefully enigmatic and expressive so I need to have it here. And it tells the gist of the story already—talk about pictures that paint a thousand words.

Every summer I learned more of the Bible—its stories and its lessons. I was repeatedly moved and the building blocks of my faith got stronger. It even led me to John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained (I have these in one volume), and also Dante Algheiri’s Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno. My fascination with religion soon paved way to mythology: Greek, Roman, and Norse. I remember wondering why Zeus can never be satisfied with just one woman. I met Athena/Minerva and admired her intelligence. I was with Daedalus when Icarus braved the wax-thawing heat of the sun (and failed). I was there when Cupid accidentally scratches himself with his arrow and falls in love with Psyche (well everyone’s gonna agree with me that you deserve a taste of your own medicine, dude). I know how the Norns spin the threads of fate under the branches of the Yggdrasil. There is so much more to discover: I went on to other cultures, with the help of my history subjects: to Egyptian mythology and met Isis, Osiris, Horus; to Japanese mythology and met Amaterasu, Izanagi, Izanami; and so on so forth.

Meeting my True Loves

I never stopped loving writers and their brainchildren; that’s just how my heart works. I encountered Garth Nix in a BookSale one fateful summer day and from then on I was exposed to mythologies that are not known universally, kingdoms that are not so celebrated by many. And zombies, too (LOL). My love brings me to cloud nine every time, and I always feel that no money or time is wasted when I invest them with books.

Not so long after my dalliance with Nix, I bumped into the love of my life: Neil Gaiman.

Come hell or high water, I’m never going to say no to that question. :D

And you know why I’m practically married to his works up to now? Because he can do magic to everything that I’ve already loved. Fairytales? He can weave them into a new-fangled chronicles. Children’s stories? He can create a twisted version of Wonderland and replace wildlife with ghosts in his own Jungle Book. Bible stories? He can make his own tales from taking foundations from the Holy Book, from Genesis to Apocalypse. Mythologies? Watch how he move worlds and make them collide, throwing classical gods with the deities of our modern world: computers and other new technologies. Don’t even mention the poetry—he can deftly paint images in the blank canvas of your mind by using his simple words. Most of all, he created the seven Endless that are ever present in human life: Destiny, Death, Dream, Despair, Destruction, Desire, and Delirium (formerly Delight). Undoubtedly, he is the literary rock star of my world.

Gaiman collection—not complete, my other babies are loaned out  (and honestly I’m not sure if I’m going to see them again)

However, expanding my reading horizons equates to extending my periphery for other possible romantic relationships. Haruki Murakami is wonderful in crafting works that are tempting in an intellectual and sexual way; I love him too. Audrey Niffenegger froze my time with her The Time Traveler’s Wife; I’m also enamored with her. J.D. Salinger let Holden Caufield catch me in the rye; he’s one of my literary saviors. Scott Westerfeld took me to World War I with steampunk goggles and legged ecosystems; he rocks my socks. John Green tickled the sleeping triggers in my mind and heart, letting them explode in enlightenment; I’m clearly in love. Cassandra Clare lent me a Shadowhunter costume and let me brawl with demons; she made me feel like a heroine. Suzanne Collins let me survive and fight through barbaric bloodsports and a big war in Panem; she made appreciate life more. David Levithan guided me through an LGBTQ utopia and let me read a romantic lexicon; he opened doors to the chambers of my heart. Paulo Giordano explained to me how some people are like Prime Numbers; he made me believe in soulmates.

There are more authors that I’ve had a fling or broke up with—even writers that knocked on my door but I ended up rejecting anyway. But that’s how it goes: you can take a romp through all the genres but you can’t love everyone.

But for a literary hooker like me, what’s the harm? All the world’s a library and I have my inner lib card with me—my desire for something that can make me live another life, even if it’s just fictional—wherever I go. :D The adventure continues.